It’s coming to the end of the summer holidays here in California. I’ve had ten weeks of free time to work on the Man On Fire audiobook and promoting my free books on Royal Road. I recall making several promises about the audiobook, so let’s break down the situation.

Is the audiobook finished?

No. Short answer.

Long answer (ahem) – when the summer holidays started, I had the promise of roughly ten uninterrupted weeks of being home alone, where nobody could interrupt me or hear me while I recorded the chapters, and plenty of associated minutes to then edit and polish those chapters, ready for publication.

And then my wonderful, hard-working husband got a work-from-home job. Yay! I’m very proud of him but that does now mean that my audiobook recordings have had to stop while he’s in meetings and calls just on the other side of the wall from me. I don’t have a soundproofed booth to work in, just my office with a drooly cat, so trying to set aside the hours I need to do this has proven difficult. Rest assured, the audiobook will be out before the year is!

You also promised a behind-the-scenes video like, a month ago?

Yeah. I did do that.

The video has been filmed but not edited. That’s something I need to just get done unfortunately. The medically diagnosed anxiety/suspected ADHD doesn’t help matters in that regard.

So what HAVE you been doing with all this time?

The gym, mostly, trying to lose some weight. A little travelling. Art practice! And a lot of writing.

I’m working on the novelisation of my comic script, ‘Son of Songs’, which you can read on Royal Road here. I’m almost at the end of Chapter 5 of 20 (!) so as you can see, that’s taking some time to complete to my satisfaction. I’m also finishing up a necromancer book (the first of which is here). I will admit that I have a lot of projects on the go at the moment:

• 5th necromancer book (The Scourge’s Shadow) – almost done, final few chapters, expected by Aug 31st
• Spencer and DeWitt 5 (The Assassination of Brittany Spencer) – about half way through, big writer’s block here, expected by Jan 2026
• Dragon book (Wingbound) – I started this a year ago and it fell by the wayside but it’s a cool idea
• Werewolf detective story (Dust and Bones) – same as above
• Son of Songs – this is taking most of my time because it’s so hefty
• Man on Fire audiobook – see above
• Way Down We Go audiobook – see above
• Way Down We Go paperback – I want to do this after the audiobook this time, because of what I’m going to explain below

The continuing publications of Spencer and DeWitt

I am committed to getting these books printed, read for audiobook and released. Part of that is actually finishing ‘The Assassination’, which is kicking my backside.

I would like to get Way Down We Go out before the end of the year, but I’ve noticed a funny thing as I read the audiobook for Man On Fire, which is that I only notice editing mistakes when I read it out loud. Therefore, I’m going to do Way Down backwards – record the audiobook first, then release the paperback. That way I can catch all the weird little apostrophes and typos before it comes out to you guys.

Spencer and DeWitt is not the largest series I’ve ever written (looking at you, A War With No End) but it is the most complex because of the mystery aspect. I want it to be the best it can be before it comes out.

All of this to say, this stuff takes way more time than people think when it isn’t your only job and you don’t have the means to market or publish through anyone other than yourself. I wish I could just hire a famous voice actor and get them to do the audiobook for me but unfortunately, I’m not making that kind of money.

Thank you guys for bearing with me during this time! You can still follow all of my goings on at the Facebook page, the Insta, whatever we’re calling Twitter these days and Bluesky.

As soon as any projects are completed, you’ll be the first to know right here!

Miss Book One? Start here.

Brittany Spencer and Francis DeWitt are both detectives with the West Ridge Police Department. Well… they were.

Spencer has one foot in Homicide and one in the Special Crimes Unit. Her allegiances split and her biggest case as yet unresolved, she does not know what she is going to do in DeWitt’s shadow and there does not seem to be anyone to tell her how to do his job – a job she does not want, especially not now that the Z-Type protests are becoming restless.

DeWitt is in The Ward, a federal facility, technically of his own devices. He cannot be out in the real world, as far as he is concerned – what if he forgets who he is, again? And yet if he stays in his safe cage, the man who ruined him might walk free…

Just as DeWitt believes he has reached rock bottom, he trips headfirst over another murder case, spiralling him back into his past – and his worst vices. What can Spencer do, when the rest of West Ridge is ready to burst?

Welcome to Down Low. Way down we go…

Brittany Spencer and Francis DeWitt are both detectives with the West Ridge Police Department. That is where their similarities end.

Spencer works homicide and she knows she is good at her job. She sees strange, grotesque things all the time and it hardly makes her bat an eye anymore. But one cold morning, a file comes across her desk that she is sure she was never meant to see.

DeWitt is a mess. He lives multiple lies trying to get by in a city where people like him are bottom of the food chain – but nobody at the precinct gets to know that. Until he becomes suspect number one in a perplexing murder case… and somehow, lead detective on it, too.

West Ridge is not a normal beat. Z-Types, humans with superhuman abilities, and the rest of the populace live side-by-side in an uneasy truce. What happens when the peace is threatened?

Welcome to the Special Crimes Unit.

Or, go to the final post here.